(NaturalNews) If the land of the free and home of the brave looked in the mirror today, they'd see a diseased and docile figure in the reflection -- a whimpering fragment of what men and women used to be. Setting the shovel and hoe aside, Americans have run for cover, hiding under the wings of a food system that only smothers and controls their health.

Have you ever experienced the freedom of growing even a little of your own food? Replacing sugars, preservatives and dyes from the grocery store with fresh produce from the garden can make all the difference in your happiness and health. Mixing your hands in the dirt brings a hearty, healthy connection with Earth that you cannot get walking around like a zombie under fluorescent supermarket lights.

Processed food industry producing fatter, more diabetic, immune-system-suppressed Americans than ever before

When America's first large supermarket appeared in 1930, the processed food industry got the green light. Cheap, easy and fake foods grew in abundance through the years, moving from chemical-sprayed fields to store shelves to dinner tables, to forks and to intestines, where the food ingredients began to break down, changing the physiology of the human race. This launched America toward a "perfect storm" of runaway diabetes and death.

America slowly evolved into what it was consuming, becoming cheap, easy and fake. It didn't take long for big agriculture to be subsidized to meet the growing demand for this processed food. Today, almost every processed food has some form of GM corn, soy or sugar beet in it, allowing the human race to mass produce flavor science to keep their brains addicted and loyal to their facade of food security. Meanwhile, the diversity of whole food has been snuffed out through the years -- heirloom seeds displaced by genetically modified food science. With pesticides depleting soil of its natural microbiology, the food grown today is simultaneously depleted of nutrients. This leaves the human race with suppressed immune systems.

On top of that, excess refined sugar and salt fills grocery store foods. Food products have become inundated with ingredients not meant for human consumption, like cancer-causing sodium nitrates and nitrites. The evidence of a dying human breed is all around, in the statistics today. Americans are fatter than ever and suffering from metabolic distress like never before. Are Americans living longer or beginning a slow painful death process sooner? Almost half of adults now have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Heaps of Americans now suffer from cancer and heart attacks. In fact, according to USA Today, new federal health data show that 12.3 percent of Americans age 20 and older have diabetes.

For another 37 percent of that population, pre-diabetes is now an issue, marked by rising blood sugar levels. This condition has increased in the past decade, jumping from just 27 percent of the population in 2004 to affecting nearly four in ten people today. A study involving nearly 900,000 people, published in the current issue of the journal Diabetologia shows that pre-diabetes also increases the risk of one getting cancer by 15 percent.

"It's bad everywhere," said Philip Kern, director of the Barnstable Brown Diabetes and Obesity Center at the University of Kentucky. "You almost have the perfect storm of an aging population and a population growing more obese, plus fewer reasons to move and be active, and fast food becoming more prevalent."

Understanding metabolic signals early on can help inspire people to turn their health around

The term pre-diabetes was first coined in the late 1990s and is only recognized today in blood tests. According to the CDC, only about 10 percent of those suffering understand where there condition comes from. Experts believe that pre-screening for diabetes gives patients time to turn their health around.

"We've proven (pre-diabetes) is an intervention time," said Matthew Petersen, the American Diabetes Association managing director of medical information and professional engagement. "It's a call to action."

According to experts, a pre-diabetic patient can undergo a few simple lifestyle changes to prevent full-blown diabetes. By losing 5-7 percent of total body weight, by getting 150 minutes of exercise weekly and by choosing fruits and vegetables over refined sugars and processed foods, people can save themselves from a nightmarish path that many Americans are now following to their death.

"It's very clear that weight loss is far more powerful than any drug we can give," Kern said.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.usatoday.com

http://science.naturalnews.com